Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Sunday, September 27, 2009

After we got done at the Clarence ambulance breakfast we decided to head to Lowden to let the boys play in the park. While Clarence has a nice park the Lowden park has equipment that is a little better for little guys like Clancey. It's lower to the ground and less places for Clancey to hurt himself ;)

This morning from 7am to 1pm was the annual ambulance breakfast at the Clarence ambulance building. It's always nice to be able to get a meal in town that didn't come from Casey's in the form of a pizza or deep fried food. Hopefull if the resturant opens up we will finally hace some more options.

Clancey is finally tall enough to reach the pedals on his trike. He hasn't quite figured out how to coordinate his feet to pedal it yet. He's learning but he still needs a little more practice. Right now we have to push him around the house on his trike.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

After a rough day at school on Friday Marshall was in need of a fun Boy Day. Normally we go to Cedar Rapids for our boy day's but today decided to keep it a little closer to home. We headed to Tipton to spend some time at the pool and then headed over to Dairy Queen for ice cream and a large french fry. So far Marshall has had a good time which should help raise his spirits from yesturday :).

This picture captures the essence of training for an Ironman the long open road. With 350 days until my next Ironman I certainly expect to spent countless hours out on the county highways around Clarence.

Update: About half way home from my run I passed a house with three girls playing outside I didn't think much about it and kept running. After I was about 400 meters from the house I heard some yelling over my music in my headphones and turned around. I noticed that one of the girls, probably around 13, was running down the road after me barefoot, in a long demin skirt and she was holding something in her hand. So I stopped and asked if I had dropped something when I passed them. She said No but she had something she had to give me. I was wondering what in the world would be so important to give to me that would cause this girl to chase me down the road. So when she got to me she handed me a little postcard sized piece of paper for the local Baptist church that question whether I had been "saved" or not. That is when it all came together for me, the demin skirt, the barefeet, and the urgency to deliver the message. You've got to love religious crazies.

Friday, September 25, 2009

When I got home this is the scene I walked into. Looks like a crazy tornado ran through the living room and knocked every cushion and pillow onto the floor. My bet it that Clancey probably had something to do with this ;)

Sunday, September 20, 2009

With Jigs back for the weekend we decided to have everyone over to grill. Once we got done eating we headed in to the Wii for any action packed game of bowling. Jigs is handing everyone their ass which sucks but since he's back for the first time in a while I guess it's alright.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Today we were in Target picking some stuff up and encountered Christmas stuff already. Come On! It isn't even October yet, hell it's still officially summer for 2 more days. This is the earliest I've ever seen Christmas stuff out at Target. Poor Halloween, always get looked over.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Tonight we went down to Raine's house warming party in Iowa City. Probably won't be able to stay too late since it is already way past the boys bedtime. Right now though the boys are having a good time dancing and carrying on.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

When I was up in Madison this weekend I decided to drop down a visit Mike in Stoughton before I headed back home. When I got down there we played some Mario Kart on the Wii and then headed downtown to pick up a few things you can only get in Stoughton. Cheese curds, Roundy Gummi Worms, and some toys for the boys. For Marshall I got a boomerang and he has had a lot of fun with it. Every night since I bought it for him we've spent the night in the back yard throwing it around. It's amazing to me the simple things that entertain kids.

Monday, September 14, 2009

After waiting in a huge line for nearly 2 hours I'm officially in Ironman Wisconsin 2010 also known as IMOO. Turns out that I didn't need to volunteer or go to Madison to register I could have just registered online. As busy as it looked I was sure that it would fill completely up by noon today but as of a few minutes ago you could still register online. Oh well I don't mind, after my expierence last year I feel like I owed it to people to volunteer myself this year. It was a good time to hang with other Ironmen and trade war stories and talk about next year's race. Plus being there really got me excited for my race next year. Only 362 more days until it's my turn again.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

This was the first biker to reach the top of the helix and told that they didn't make the cutoff. It was 5:33 when she made it in and the cut it off at 5:31. She begged the people to let her go on but they had already taken down the timing matts so it was impossible to let her go on. She broke down sobbing and had to be helped into the building. I'm not an emotional guy but I shed a tear for her. Being I only made the cutoff by 15 minutes last year I know I would have done the same thing had I not made it. To invest ten and half hours in the race and be pulled off the course is tough. What makes it more tragic is she looked good enough to finish the marathon and the women right before her had to be carried into transition and subsequently dropped out.

Well I'm done with my Ironman bike catcher shift for the day. When I signed up for bike catcher I thought I would be taking bikes from athletes as they rode in. What I actually did was stand in the bike transition area all day and run back and forth from the stairs putting bikes away. I bet I probably ran 10-12 miles today over my five hour shift. If nothing else I got to see some really cool bikes and suffer from bike envy all day. It was a fun day and I look forward to being an athlete in the race next year.

I just showed up at Monona Terrace for my volunteer shift. I'm a bit early but I thought iit would be nice take the sights and sounds in that are Ironman. The swim cutoff just happened and the last athlete just ran by he looked to be struggling, it is going to be a long day for him. I have to say it is really jard to be down here and not be in the race. I'm really looking forward to next year.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Here I am in Madison the night before Ironman 2009. I remember after I finished the Ironman last year I swore I would never do this again and about 3 weeks later, after I recovered I regretted not signing up for this year. So here I am axiously waiting for tomorrow so I can volunteer and then sign up for next year's race. I'm a bike catcher at the bike finish from 12:30 - 5:30 tomorrow so I'll get to see some pretty cool bikes all day.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Well we are just getting done at the booksale here at the fairgrounds in Des Moines. This is always nice because you can get a ton of books for very little money. We ended up getting about a dozen books each so it was worth the trip. Not really looking forward to the two and a half hour drive home but since I have to leave for Ironman tomorrow we pretty much have to go.

Today after work Jen and I decided to head to Des Moines for the Planned Parenthood Booksale. This is a huge used booksale held at the fair grounds every year. If you ever come to our house this is how we managed to fill up our bookshelves.

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

My blog has been rather quite lately so I figured I had better put up a new post so people didn't think I forgot about it. Nothing new to really report.

I got all my signatures to get put on the ballot for the upcoming city council election. It's amazing how many people who have pulled me aside to tell me thanks for running again. There is a group of people who like to cause problems in the city running and I think its simply to try and get me off the council. I believe that they think I'm a bit too opinionated for someone who isn't "from here" and they feel like they need to take back the community and "change the direction". Like they say though, if your not pissing people off your probably not doing your job ;)

On the Marshall front school is starting to go a bit better for him lately. While we still get some whining about having to go it is significantly less then it was even a week ago and I expect in the next few weeks it will stop all together.

Clancey is doing great. The eye is doing well and he is keeping his glasses on. He becomes more of a brute everyday. I think the kid is made of steal and he seems to not be afraid of anything. We may have the next starting linebacker for the cyclones living with us right now :)

Finally, this weekend I'm headed to Madison, Wisconsin to volunteer and then sign up for next year's Ironman. I swore after I did my last one I would never do it again but once you do one you become addicted and have to do another. In fact it is going to be hard to watch everyone else start the race Sunday morning and not be part of the crowd.

Monday, September 07, 2009

While I try not to make my blog to political the recent reaction by some parents not wanting to let their children hear the presidents speech tomorrow is out of hand. I totally agree with what John Harwood says in this clip.

This morning the family was slow in getting up and around for our picnic. It was about 11 before we left and headed south towards the river. We thought for sure we could find a good park along the river in Muscatine. We found a park but there was zero shade and very few picnic tables. We then headed out of town south west to see what we could find and pretty much had zero luck. The boys demanded equipment, Jen and I wanted shade and a picnic table and we just kept having zero luck. Finally, after going down a few gravel roads and making some wrong turns, we found a park in Wapello that met all of our requirements. I am grill right now and the boys are having a good time on the equipment. The perfect labor day :)

Sunday, September 06, 2009

So far we've had a pretty lazy Labor Day weekend. Spent yesturday running errands in Cedar Rapids for most of the afternoon. Today I did a 40 mile bike in the morning and then spent the rest of the afternoon mowing the lawn. One thing hasn't changed since I was a kid, I still hate mowing the lawn. Tomorrow the family and I have big plans to go one a picnic and let the boys play on some payground equipment. Hopefully I will have something to report with that so my blog will liven up a bit :).

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

For the past year and half the local telephone company has been spending time running Fiber Optic line to everyone's house in Clarence. As a tech geek I was really excited about getting the line ran to our house. So about 6 months ago they came and hooked up our Fiber Optic line and I gleefully sped home after work excited for all the bandwidth I would have. Right when I got in the door I ran a speedtest on my internet just to find out it was slower, 300kb/sec! I was pissed I should be getting 10-20mb a second internet. Turns out that they hadn't rolled out there new internet packages yet and with the new fiber optic started to enforce the bandwidth caps we were paying for. Nothing more aggrevating then bragging about how you have fiber to the house but the internet is slower then DSL!

Yesturday they came to the house and hooked up our new digital cable and increased our internet speeds to 3mb/sec. Finally, I'm able to watch video on the web, get a clear cable signal, and soon a DVR. We will be getting our new U.S. Cellular tower in town soon so we will go from a town in the technology dark ages to town pushing the frontiers. YES!!!!

About Me

Levi is a software engineer currently working at Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids. Levi lives in Clarence, Iowa where he has lived since 2004 and he is serving his third four year term a city councilman.

When Levi isn't working he spends time raising his two awesome boys, Marshall and Clancey. Levi is also in training for his 9th Ironman Triathlons which will be held in Madison, Wisconsin on September 13th of 2015. .